A Fiery Companion
by Manymilesandmanytears
Summary: Dustfinger left Meggie just after they had developed feelings towards each other. Meggie suffers from losing him.. What will his return bring? TW: ana/Rated M for future content
1. Embracing The Hunger Pain

Her cool hands and her forehead were leaning against the cold window glass. Meggie stood in the library and felt alone, melancholic and overly pensive. Around her only the books, sharing her silence, being so full of stories. Stories that Meggie was assuerd of were better than her own was. Or could ever become.  
Outside the world was dark, it had gotten night over the time she stood there. Without any move, her feet slowly starting to hurt, just as her stomach was aching for some food. But she restricted to listen to her body´s needs. She didn´t want to listen to anything right now. Since he´d been gone, there was nothing she wanted to do still. She felt alone. Left in her story, without the protagonist by her side.  
Oh, how she missed his flame-like reddish mane, his sparkling and piercing grey eyes. The softness of his palms, playing with fire like other people play with marbles. How she missed that scent that always surround that him. Piercing and chemically like the fuels he used for blowing fire.  
Meggie lowered her hands, her arms aching from having them hold up for so long, laying her hands on her stomach she sighted softly and continued to stare out into the night. She didn´t feel good the last times. Not only because of missing him, the man who had set her heart on fire - a hurting and badly burning one - and left her shortly afterwards, without naming any reason. No, Meggie felt like being air in that house. Just another book. One more in a collection of books no one would ever read again. She hadn´t seen Eleanor in days and after her telling Mortimer about Dustfinger and herself he didn´t speak a word with her for almost a week, now he was gone for another to fix a book someone still seemed to care for.  
Another sigh escaped her rosy, pale lips, lay steamy on the old cold glass for a couple of seconds until it faded away as Eleanor entered the room.

The older woman's brows furrowed whne she saw the girl standing at the window – still! How long had it been now that this was the only thing Meggie was doing all day long? Days? A week? – She´d gotten smaller. Well, if that girl eats nothing the whole day long..  
"Aren´t you hungry, Meg?" Eleanor asked in a tone that tried to be friendly but sounded overly acted.  
"No, thanks," Meggie lied, her hands still resting on her stomach. At some point she´d come to learn to embrace the hunger pain. At least she felt something besides the numbed emptiness that had occupied her body.  
"You really should have a small snack.." Eleanor persisted.  
"I´m not hungry.." it was a lie. Meggie knew it and Eleanor did so, too. But she couldn´t force her to eat.  
"I´m gonna leave you a plate with the leftovers from this nights dinner in the fridge, okay?" this time Eleanors voice really did sound soft.

"Thanks," Meggie turned around and smiled weekly at her aunt. She noticed the worried expression on the older woman's face, "I´ll go soon and eat some of it, okay?" Another weak smile that seemed to convince her aunt who nodded and left the library.  
Should she really go? Meggie was struggling with herself. After some weeks she´d started to like th enew way she looked now. In some way she had achieved that look, hadn´t she? So .. she just couldn´t destroy it now. "He wouldn´t want you starve the way he did in the forests of Inkheart, ages ago," her inner self raised it´s voice in her head. Slowly Meggie turned around and walked towards the door. Her fingers slid over the backs of the books in the shelves she passed. Taller and smaller ones. Old and new. Interesting and boring ones. But none of them seemed to call for her to step in, to walk through it´s pages into a foreign world.

Clear soup with noodles and vegetables. The full plate stood in front of her.  
It was half past ten and the kitchen clock's ticking was the only sound in the room. Meggie looked at the soup, the way the globules of fat floating on the soup covered it´s whole surface, the softened noodls in it and the pieces of vegetables. Meggie stirred it slowly with the cold spoon she´d found in one of the few drawers the small kitchen had. Eleanor clearly wasn´t a woman that laid much worth into making a delicious meal every evening.  
And the soup didn´t look any delicious at all. Stirring it she watched the noodles and vegetables whirl around in it, mix up and disappear from the surface, just to return again.


	2. Home Again

"One doesn't play with food," a husky voice from behind her. Meggie stopped stirring the soup and turned slowly around. There he was, standing in the door, his ﬁery red hair longer than the last time she'd seen him and a worried look on his face. The dark coat was wet from the rain that had set in around nine.  
"Dustﬁnger," she breathed the words in a low unbelieving voice. Could this be true? Meggie stood up and walked slowly towards him.  
"Are you alright?" his voice sounded even more worried than he looked.  
"Of course I am," it was a plain lie. And he knew that, too. She could see it in his eyes, piercing blue like the sea on the most cloudless days, that knowingly mustered her small ﬁgure.  
Without another word he stepped up to her and wrapped his strong arms around the young woman. Giving her shelter from the feelings that seemed to torment her.  
She gladly soaked in his scent of smoke and biting chemicals, that she'd missed for so long. The ﬁre-eater laid his gentle ﬁngers under Meggie's chin and lifted her head up.  
"That's not the truth," his soft voice underlined the worried expression on his face. Meggie buried her face in his chest and whispered "Well, I missed you. A lot.."  
"Ah... Yes, I see.." his voice was dark with stern, almost biting overtone which made Meggie lift her head from his chest and look him in the eyes.  
"You really don't look any healthy, Meg," Dustﬁnger continued and the worried expression on his face grew stronger. His thumb brushed over her lips again. They'd been red like the sweetest cherries once, now they had the pale tone of withering roses. She forced a weak smile onto her lips.

Dustfinger looked at her, the woman that meant his life. The only person he had returned to. She had gotten thin during the past months, her blonde hair was tied up in a pony tail and she looked very tired. He felt sorry for having left her and something depe inside him was giving him the fault for the way she must have felt during his absence.  
"You should get some sleep, sweetheart," Dustfinger smiled at her, warm and comforting. Meggie's pupils widened in a silent terror for a split second before she nodded lightly.  
Every night since he´d been gone it´s been terrible dreams that had turned her sleep into scenes that would be too terrible for the worst horror movie. 'But if he's back now, perhaps the dreams will return to where they came from,' an inner voice tried to soothe her. And so she let Dustfinger pick her up, lift her off the ground and carry her to the attic where the bed stood that Eleanor once had said to be his. Only that it was now surrounded be even more boxes from which the smell of old pages and a thousand of stories wafted into the dry and a bit cool air.  
The moon was shining silver light trough one of the roof windows and the stars where glittering like pieces of gold all around it. Meggie was staring up into the sky thinking of Gwin who surely was outside now, hunting little animals.

"Where have you been?" her voice sounded too loud in the silent attic and she damned herself for asking. Dustfinger slowly turned his head around to see her face.  
"Far away, Meg," he kissed her cheek gently and pulled her closer to himself. His arm laid around her cold shoulders and she was immediately pressing her body against his. He let out a sigh and stroked over her back, feeling her spine far too much.  
"Why did you leave me?" she went on asking, her voice all husky.  
"I didn´t want to leave you, I had to go.." he was sorry. And hoping that she could hear this in his voice. Meggie opened her eyes and looked at him. His ginger hair was messy and his sea blue eyes looked tired. She lifted one hand and stroked across his cheek.  
"You will stay with me now, won't you?" she asked, calmly.

The fire breather's eyes wandered over the young woman's face. She still was a beauty. 'How could she ever not be one?' he asked himself immediately.  
"Of course I'll stay with you," and with a soft smile he kissed her. His lips finding hers once again.  
Meggie's hands pulled him closer to herself as she softly slid his tongue over Dustfinger's lips. Every little piece of her was craving for more.  
The girl's hot lips felt demanding on his and Dustfinger still was assured of Meggie feeling deeply hurt inside.  
"I´ll still be there by tomorrow morning," now it was his voice that was low and husky as he spoke after softly ending her passionate kiss.  
Wrapping one arm around her shoulder he pulled her closer and kissed Meggie's forehead as she closed her eyes to drift of in a deep sleep.


End file.
